The Idler

Idler’s Diary

01 October 2009

MONDAY: TO 23 ROMILLY STREET for an evening at the Book Club Boutique. The alliterative organizers, Salena Saliva and Rachel Rayner, had invited the Idler to put on an evening of short talks and music. The night takes place in a cosy basement bar and is lively to the point of affable rowdiness. I introduced the evening with a ukulele singalong to “I Fought The Law”, first performed by the Bobby Fuller Four. Dan Kieran, David Bramwell, Will Hodgkinson and Dominic Frisby all read short extracts from their contributions to the latest Idler. David Bramwell kicked over my glass of Old Speckled Hen but was otherwise well behaved. Will was joined on stage by Sam Lee, who sang an old folk song very beautifully indeed. The evening was crowned by a reading of “I am the Indigene” from Penny Rimbaud which was unfortunately spoiled somewhat by a certain drunken poet who heckled and mumbled throughout the performance in spectacularly discourteous fashion. Thanks though to Salena and Rachel and to the Idler readers and everyone else who came along to what was an excellent night: stimulating, challenging, convivial.

TUESDAY: TO LICHFIELD, for a talk organized by Sarah Henshaw of the very excellent Book Barge bookshop. The enterprising Sarah set up this business a few months ago and has created a superb independent bookshop which very much reflects her own good taste: every book is carefully chosen and there is none of the gaudy commercialism which you see in a Waterstone, with barely a Dan Brown to be seen. Alongside the new books, she has a very good selection of second hand goodies: old Penguins and Pelicans and beautiful old hardbacks. There is also a deck-chair, and the shop will sometimes rock gently as a wave passes by. It is a truly literary bookshop that manages completely to avoid being pretentious.

As Lichfield or course was Dr Johnson’s birthplace, and as September 14th was the tercentenary of his birth, it seemed natural to discuss Johnson’s key role in the germination of the Idler magazine: it was from his series of essays of that name – scandalously underestimated by his biographers – that I was inspired to start my own 20th century Idler. Dr Johnson was comfortingly lazy as well as productive. The sad thing is that he spent his life castigating himself when there was no need. He was a religious man and I blame the Protestant religion: had Johnson been born three hundred years previously, he would have been a pre-Reformation Christian and would have lived a far less guilt-burdened life as a result.

Reading one of the new biographies on my way home, I was reminded of Johnson’s constant money worries and also of his famous line: “No one but a block-head ever wrote except for money.” Today it is a constant source of surprise to me why so many people waste their time splurging out worthless blogs which probably no one will read and which certainly no one will ever pay for. Therefore I update his quip and assert: “No one but a blog-head ever wrote except for money.”

Thanks to Sarah for organizing a very enjoyable evening and please do visit her shop if you are in or near Lichfield: the website is here.